Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV)

by JC Andrijeski

  The corridor didn’t go far behind her at all. It appeared to end only a few meters past where she stood.

  She couldn’t go that way.

  She had thought she was in the woods when she first looked around. The darkness confused her, that rustle of leaves and branches. The dark clouds. The stars. The combination made her think she was in a dense forest on a moonless night.

  But she wasn’t.

  Looking up at those high hedge walls, their nearly perfect lines and dense, impenetrable shapes, Jet found she knew exactly where she was. She’d seen something like this before, in one of Chiyeko’s picture books back in the pits.

  She was in a maze.

  THE MAZE

  Wind gusted down on her, freezing cold, catching her breath.

  Jet looked up, feeling snow on the air, or the bare beginnings of it maybe. Moving forward into the hedge maze, she stopped only long enough to put her hand up against one of the topiary walls, feeling along it, trying to get a sense of its density. Still experimenting, she thrust her whole arm inside, trying to feel if she could force her way through, if need be.

  When her gloved hand closed over a thicker branch towards the middle––

  ––it shocked her. Hard.

  Hard enough to make her teeth snap together in a violent clench. Hard enough to hurt her bones, to make her fingers clamp harder on the branch before letting go.

  Letting out a shocked cry, low and torn away from her lips by the cold wind, Jet looked at her hand in the dark, clenching and unclenching her gloved fingers.

  She needed to know, though.

  Using her teeth so she wouldn’t have to sheath Black, the pulled the glove off her hand. It crossed her mind that she already might have broken the rules by doing so, but she did it anyway, thrusting her hand back inside the hedge wall.

  She gripped the branch deliberately that time.

  It shocked her again.

  It wasn’t as hard that time, though. Jet still gritted her teeth at the initial jolt of pain, but she could bear it. After a few more seconds, the pain seemed to worsen and she let go again, gasping, feeling like her hand had gone numb.

  Pulling her arm and hand out of the topiary, she clenched it a few times to get the feeling back. After a few more seconds, she took off her other glove too, shoving both of them in her pockets.

  She began to walk cautiously down the aisle between the manicured hedges, her breath pluming out in front of her, the sword held tightly in both hands. Within a few more minutes of walking, her fingers were blue with cold, even more numb than they had been from the electric shock from the hedge. Jet clenched and unclenched both hands around the hilt of Black and fought to ignore it as she continued to walk.

  Eventually, though, she had to concede defeat and fished her gloves out of her pocket.

  As soon as she put them back on, heating sensors inside the gloves ignited, creating sparks of feeling in the skin and muscle of her hands. The contrast made her gasp...it also made her wonder if the virtual cold might actually give her frostbite in real life, if she tried to go without gloves for too long in here.

  Well, at least now she knew.

  She glanced up at the thought, her gloved hands gripping the sword’s hilt.

  Snow was cascading down around her in increasingly large puffs. The snowfall deadened sound, and made it even harder to see as flakes caught on her cheeks and eyelashes, making her blink and rub her face.

  The snowfall grew thicker as she continued to walk, until her booted feet were shuffling through a few inches at the bottom of the hedge maze.

  Jet reached the end of the first row and nearly walked into the hedge.

  Visibility was so bad now, she had to look in both directions, squinting through the snow and the pitch black to try and see which way lay open. After a few more seconds of panting out plumes of steam and trying to see in the now-starless night, she realized she could go in either direction. Her mind wanted her to go left, so she swung her body towards the right and began walking through the deepening snow.

  She reached the end of that leg of the maze too, and went right again, even though it felt like going backwards now...or maybe in a giant circle.

  The snow was up to her shins by then, and Jet could feel sweat trickling down her back under the sense-suit from the effort of slogging through it. It felt like she’d been out here for an hour already, but her internal clock told her it was more like fifteen or twenty minutes.

  She stopped in the middle of the next intersection, which gave her two options again.

  The wind kicked up, blinding her, making her cough even as she tightened her grip on the sword, panting as she tried to listen through the dark.

  Even so, she was puzzled.

  Why was nothing happening in here?

  This couldn’t be a very entertaining run for the spectators to watch––Jet lost in a nighttime maze in the snow, messing around with gloves and frostbite while she fumbled in the dark.

  Even as she thought it, a voice drifted towards her out of the next gust of wind.

  High-pitched, buffeted by the icy air, but even so, Jet recognized it.

  “Jet!” her mother called. “Jet! Help us!”

  The voice hit her like a punch in the gut.

  Jet turned, facing back the way she’d come, in the direction of the voice.

  Her breath caught, making her head pound, even more than the buffeting gusts of snow. She hadn’t heard her mother’s voice in so long. The shock nearly brought tears to her eyes, even as a part of her flushed in fury at the blatant manipulation she knew lay behind it. Trazen’s words echoed just beyond the feeling that rose in her at the thought of seeing her mother...only in a much harder, more cynical part of her mind.

  They’ll do anything they can to get you to go the way they want, Jet, he’d warned her, holding her arm as they sat by that pool. They’ll push any button, Jet. They’ll be merciless about it. You have to harden yourself, to use your mind only, no matter how much it hurts…

  She’d been watching his face as he finished, feeling the grief in him, the knowing behind the words. She couldn’t help wondering if it came from him time in the Rings.

  He’d answered her, although she hadn’t really aimed the question at him deliberately.

  Yes, he’d thought at her. Yes, Jet. The runs got increasingly difficult for me towards the end. In the lead up to becoming the next Ringmaster...

  Why did you do it? she’d thought at him.

  There was a pause before he’d answered. Then he’d spoken aloud.

  “It was my job, Jet.”

  She could feel he meant more than the Rings.

  She felt glimpses of the Shinkara in that, in them wanting him placed somewhere influential. They’d groomed him to be Ringmaster. He couldn’t fail them. He’s promised them he could do it, no matter what. He’d trained for it.

  She felt devotion in that. Loyalty.

  Something about it touched her, in a way that surprised her.

  Why the thing with Biggs? she’d asked him, using the venom again. Why did you use my brother in that run with the captive? The one before Astet?

  He gave her a direct look, that grief still heavy in his eyes.

  I needed you to come to me, Jet, he thought at her. You avoided me after I stung you…even more than you had before. Even with how much of me you saw, how much of my real self I let you see. He shrugged. I needed you to come to me.

  Jet stared at him in disbelief. Then she let out a barking laugh.

  You meant for me to attack you in that Control Room? she thought back, still amused. Then why did you look so surprised when I busted in there with my sword?

  He smiled at that, tilting his head to the side, a Nirreth’s ‘no.’

  I hadn’t expected that, no, he thought at her, still smiling. Stroking her arm with the fingers of one hand, he chuckled then, shaking his head. Truthfully, I thought you’d come at me after you’d left the arena…at the restaurant following the
match, maybe. I’d intended to be there, to make it easy for you. I knew you might think I really had your brother…

  Glancing up, he gave her an apologetic look. I didn’t have a lot of time, Jet. I needed to touch you, to warn you about Richter having your family. You wouldn’t come near me, he repeated. Even with how much you saw of me.

  That time, she heard a faint question in his mind.

  Because of that, she corrected him. I avoided you because of that, Trazen.

  He lifted the skin above one eye, the equivalent of quirking an eyebrow. “Why?” he said in English.

  Sighing, she’d looked him in the face. You know why.

  He’d left her alone by the pool, not long after that.

  Even so, she’d seen him flinch when she said it, even as his tail gave a sharp lash.

  Whispers of that conversation remained in Jet’s mind as she stared in the direction of her mother’s voice. It was snowing harder now, but the wind had died down. Big, white flakes of snow fell on her sense-suit and her hair, melting on the bare skin of her face.

  “Mom!” she yelled.

  She did it without thought. Maybe she did it just to hear her voice.

  “Jet! Help us! Help us, please, honey!”

  The wind gusted around her again, driving wet snow into her face. She fought with what to do. She knew she should run the other direction. She should just go.

  Biting her lip so hard she tasted blood, she turned her back on the voice, slogging through snow that came almost up to her knees. She knew if she kept walking like this, she’d be exhausted before long. She knew they’d keep trying to force her to go back, to push her towards where Bukka no doubt waited for her. She knew she had to stay away from the other woman for as long as she could.

  “Jet! Don’t leave us!” Her mother’s scream, weirdly closer that time, piercing Jet’s heart. “Jet! Please! They’re going to kill us if you don’t come! Please!”

  Her mother screamed louder then, her voice holding nothing but pain. The scream turning into begging, pleading, then a moan.

  That moan stretched into another panic-filled wail, making Jet’s stomach turn.

  “JET! JET HELP ME! GOD HELP ME!”

  Jet closed her eyes, forcing her legs to shove faster through the snow. She felt her throat close, told herself over and over it wasn’t real...it wasn’t real, they didn’t really have her mom. Even so, when the screams grew louder, more blood-curdling, it sounded so much like her, Jet could barely stand it.

  “JET! JET! They have Biggs! Don’t let them kill my baby! PLEASE JET!”

  That time, she came to a dead stop in the snow. Her mom always joked that Biggs was her baby. Biggs hated it. No matter how much he complained, her mom just laughed.

  “JET!”

  She closed her heart. She made herself walk, plowing faster through the snow.

  She didn’t realize she’d closed her eyes again until she opened them and found herself hitting another fork in the maze. This one only let her go one way.

  Well...two. She could go right, or she could go back the way she came.

  Even as she changed the direction of her feet, turning right at the end of the row, she felt that pain in her chest worsen. She was sweating again from moving faster through the snow but Jet ignored that too, forcing her legs harder through the rising drifts.

  She’d only walked a few more meters when a thick snarl brought her up short.

  The snarl turned into a roar, something that sounded almost familiar, even though it was louder, deeper than the sound Jet remembered. It also came from higher up than Jet would have expected. Given that there weren’t a lot of things to climb in here, Jet figured that had to mean the thing was really tall, whatever it was.

  It sounded almost like a mountain cat, though.

  Her mother called them cougar.

  Jet had run into a few of them in the wild, diseased and skinny, trying to get at their few chickens and goats, even hunting young humans and dogs. They came down from the mountains in the winter when they got hungry enough, or when the Nirreth and the mountain rebels drove them into the lowlands.

  This one didn’t sound like the tired, hungry cats Jet remembered though, with their near-desperate roars and growls as they paced outside the tunnels of the skag pits.

  This thing sounded a lot bigger.

  Even as Jet thought it, she heard panting breaths through the snow.

  She crouched down before the sound, brandishing her sword. Heavy paws impacted in front of her, kicking up clumps of wet snow. The panting grew louder; steam plumed out with each breath, just visible through the falling snow. The creature itself was still nothing more than a shadowed blur running towards her. It moved almost soundlessly apart from those paws falling and digging and the heavier pants, the barest trace of a lingering growl.

  The overall quiet unnerved Jet, even as the animal bore down on her.

  She let out a yell herself, raising the sword as she saw the thing leap. She ran at it as it leapt, darting to the left and closing the distance as she slashed up and to the right with her sword. She felt the blade make contact, jarring her arm as the thing screamed.

  When Jet brought the blade back towards her, it was covered in blood.

  Jet hated killing.

  She hated it. The thought hit her out of nowhere, shocking her with its intensity. It hit her emotionally for some reason too, even as she shifted her stance to face the creature again. As her emotions turned darker, she realized they were being manipulated.

  They were going after her mind in here.

  They’d never done that before, either.

  The giant cat stalked in front of her, roaring its pain and fury. Jet could almost see it now, in glimpses through the dark. The flash of fangs when it roared. More pluming breaths. She could smell its blood. She’d always felt sorry for those mountain cats driven down to look for food near the human skag pits. That feeling of not wanting to kill it––of not wanting to kill anything––reached her again, making her chest hurt, and her stomach.

  Damn them.

  Damn them to hell for doing this to her.

  Trazen warned her about this too, she realized. In his own way, at least.

  They have access to your mind, Jet, he’d told her through the venom. Never forget that! They’ll use what they find there. They can’t easily create something out of whole cloth...that’s against the rules and I don’t think they’d break that, even for this. But they can use what’s there. They can exaggerate things that are a part of your emotional make up already...

  At the time, Jet thought he’d meant they’d use her fears to design the run itself.

  Giant spiders. Her mother being in pain. That kind of thing.

  She’d already known they liked to do that.

  The cat growled at her, trying to stalk around her in a circle inside the walls of the maze. Jet followed its movements, shifting her body, brandishing Black when it got too close. When the mountain cat swiped at her with one of its plate-sized paw, she slashed at it with her sword again, cutting its leg. The animal screamed and that nausea in Jet’s gut worsened.

  She didn’t want to kill it.

  “JET!” the voice screamed from behind her. “JET! HELP US! PLEASE!”

  She closed her eyes, longer than a blink, then wiped her face with a gloved hand.

  She couldn’t let them do this to her.

  Trazen got through this. If he could do it for his people, she could do it for hers.

  It would be better if she could figure out how to deal with this emotional thing now. If she didn’t, she’d be useless by the time she had to go up against Bukka herself. Bukka, who was more than just a slave––she was a lab rat, someone they’d violated before she’d even been born.

  At the thought, Jet’s reluctance to hurt anyone grew more intense.

  She couldn’t fool herself that Bukka was just a virtual creature. She’d have to kill her for real.

  “JET! JET! THEY’VE GOT BIGGS!
JET! HELP US!”

  She clenched her jaw, shoving the feeling down as it grew more intense. Forcing her mind blank, she strode closer to the growling creature through the deep snow, blinking against the cold. The mountain cat in front of her snarled, walking around her again. It was also struggling in the snow, its weight too heavy to stay on top of it.

  When the animal got close enough, Jet lunged at it, slamming the sword forward into the thing’s side. The cat screamed, twisting to get away from her blade, and its own motion helped her to rake the sword deeper through its side.

  She felt the jar of each rib as she cut it open.

  The smell of its blood was all around her now, suffocating her.

  Jet screamed, lunging at the thing again.

  That time, the cat snarled back. It reared up, swiping at her. As soon as it exposed its underbelly, Jet slammed the sword up and in. She cut right into its heart. The cat screamed louder. The second scream quickly bubbled...filling with liquid as at least one of its lungs got punctured. The cat continued to growl, scrabbling its claws in the snow. One of them raked across Jet’s shoulder and she gasped, yanking out the sword and rolling out of the way.

  The cat fell heavily into the wet snow, still growling.

  Tears ran down Jet’s face as she cut its throat.

  They froze there, hurting her skin.

  She hit the vein in the big cat’s neck and blood gushed out, darkening the snow almost to where Jet’s sense-suit clad legs stood. The growls gurgled louder briefly...then stopped. The creature exhaled a last plume of steam, melting the snow where it lay.

  The smell of its blood filled Jet’s nose.

  Fighting another swell of that nausea and disgust, she rubbed her sword on the snow to get the blood off. She smoothed it again on the leg of her sense-suit to get off the rest, then re-sheathed it, pressing her gloved hands to her face. She fought with that disgust, with an overwhelming feeling of regret for having been forced to kill it.